IBM Tivoli Maximo customers and Business Partners, be sure to sign up for tomorrow’s Jam Webcast, “Asset Management for a Smarter Planet and Maximo Pulse Preview.”Bill Sawyer, VP, Tivoli Maximo Operations, will tell it like it is in asset management today – and describe how hard times and aging assets and infrastructures can combine with new embedded technologies and customer-focused service management to make Maximo Asset Management the IBM “smarter planet” poster child. 1. Sign up now!2. Report back here afterward to discuss.###

Have you attended any of the Jams (interactive webcasts) that Tivoli broadcasts on Tuesdays at noon, ET? Never heard of them? Sign up for a weekly notice of upcoming Jams by subscribing to, well, our weekly notice, Upcoming Jams. Here's this week's write-up.

These Jams are unique - ongoing weekly meeting-grounds on topics of direct interest to service management practitioners, with live Q&A, replays and downloads available in 24 hours, lots of related resources - and now, an "open mike" right here for questions, requests, feedback and push-back.

Because I manage the Jams calendar, I'm especially interested to know what you think about any given Jam or the program as a whole. So let's hear from you, loud and clear!

Here's a quick run-down of tomorrow's Jam. Sign up to attend if it's something that applies and appeals to you.

Leveraging the BlackBerry with MaximoTuesday, November 25, 200812:00 – 1:00 p.m. US ET17:00 – 18:00 GMTSpeaker: Wayne Gahagan, The Createch Group (IBM Business Partner for IBM Maximo asset management solutions)Register by clicking on the title here.(Replay available Wednesday, November 26 at 12:00 ET)

The IBM Partner The Createch Group has two new very practical Blackberry applications for Maximo users:

The BlackBerry Approver, which allows one to process any Maximo approval request directly from their BlackBerry device.

And permit me to plug the special December 2 Jam on green computing that you will not want to miss. We've booked a cast of heavy-hitter speakers you will definitely want to hear from and share your concerns with during the live Q&A. It's only eight days away, so book it now by clicking on the title here.

The excitement and amazing performances at the 2008 Beijing Olympics bring to mind the importance of getting a great start "off the blocks." Whether you're Michael Phelps, striving for your record eighth gold medal in a single Olympic games, or Usain Bolt smashing the world records in both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, how you start is often the difference between gold and silver, between winning and not.

Similarly, getting a great start with IBM Service Management can help our clients deliver gold medal service quality with surprising speed. We've all talked to our clients about how IBM service management enables them to deliver quality service, operational efficiency and innovation through visibility, control, and automation. Our clients "get it," yet many of them face the same challenge: "How can we get started?"

To help you answer that question and get your clients off to that fast start that they're looking for, we've developed the IBM service management entry points. The entry points are documented "starter projects" based on actual customer usage and previous implementation experiences. IBM Service Management professionals worked extensively with customers and key industry analysts to create this set of five entry points that, upon completion, minimize time to value and achieve practical business benefits.

The five IBM Service Management entry points are:

Discover: Understanding infrastructure and business dependencies Monitor: Tracking infrastructure health and compliance Protect: Ensuring infrastructure security and resilience against threats and disaster Industrialize: Streamlining workflows and processes for repeatable, scalable and consistent results Integrate: Aligning and integrating IT and business operations and objectives for optimal impact

Be sure catch the replay of the August 26 IBM Service Management Jam webcast, "Where to Begin: The Five Entry Points" featuring Zarina Stanford, Director, Tivoli Marketing. Zarina discusses how implementing one or more of the entry point projects can help clients get a great start "off the blocks" and address with urgency the high priorities of cost reduction and operational inefficiencies, improving their service quality and positioning themselves not only in the lead, but with the absolute best chance to win.

As names go, neither IBM Tivoli Unified Process nor its acronym ITUP is among my top 10.They just dont fire the imagination or clearly describe its purpose like, for instance, Conan the Barbarian or Floyd the Barber.Now those are names that say something.

Yet more than 17,000 people are registered users of ITUP, a Web-based service management tool, which is now in its eighth release. And to be fair, it would be hard to come up with snappy name that captures what ITUP can do, which cant be described in a few words.

For example, ITUP is often touted for its ability to make ITIL actionable. Say what?

Okay, lets break it down.ITIL theInformation Technology Infrastructure Library -- is a few volumes worth of best practices on how to manage IT infrastructures, based on hard-won, real-world experience.Many of us in Tivoli have gone through a few days training to become ITIL-certified, which gives you a general understanding, a nice certificate and healthy respect for it.

But the challenge with ITIL has always been, how do you take that general wisdom and apply it to real-world situations at a particular organization?Thats where ITUP comes in.It takes ITIL from concept to reality by mapping those best practices to the people (by their specific roles), processes, information and technology (right down to the names of specific IBM solutions) that customers use, or can use, in their organizations.It serves as a roadmap to help customers understand how to actually implement ITIL best practices and a service management approach and see the real value they can gain.It even shows how ITIL best practices can fit in with other models, such as CoBIT and eTOM.

ITUP is based on the collective experience of thousands of IBM engagements, is continually updated to keep current with the latest version of ITIL, and its free.Theres also a product version of ITUP, called ITUP Composer, which takes customers beyond the understanding phase into the actual implementation phase.

I think an ITUP demo is worth 1,000 words, especially mine, and fortunately, weve got a good one.Check it out, and then maybe we can start a naming contest for the tool.Maybe ITUP the Implementer?ITUP the Eighth and Counting?ITUP the Actionable-izer?This name stuff is harder than I thought.

I have some big news to share. You thought world tours were only reserved for the Stones, Springsteen and other big-name acts? Well, I guess service management has hit the big time, because the IBM Service Management World Tour kicks off in mid-August with gigs across the U.S., Europe and Asia.

I think this is a perfect follow-on to Pulse a merry band of IBM experts comes to a town near you (hopefully) and delivers in-depth presentations on the latest IBM solutions and approaches in service management, storage management, enterprise asset management, and System z. Its a series of hard-hitting one-day events held in smaller settings where you can get some serious face-to-face time with service management gurus. Im helping one such expert with his presentations on the Tivoli Service Management Center for z and consolidating Linux workloads on z (no snappy title yet), and Im impressed with his focus and clarity.Even I get it!By the way, if you missed my profile, thats what I do, write presentations, podcasts and website stories for Tivoli.

Anyway, the tour begins in Boston on August 12, with events in 13 more US cities; the Europe and Asia schedules are being finalized now. You can check out what we have so far and even register for the road show at the World Tour page. You can always ping your favorite IBM sales rep, who is sitting by his/her laptop yearning to hear from you, or ping me, Bob Pickard. In any event, I'll be blogging new news on the tour as it comes along. Party on, Garth.

Welcome to the IBM Service Management blog.A variety of authors who represent different
parts of IBM will discuss a range of Service Management topics such as service
availability and performance, green IT, IT asset and financial management, IT
governance, service delivery and process, storage management, SOA management,
enterprise asset management, and service assurance for service providers.

We'll discuss industry trends and happenings, analyst
perspectives, new product and solution announcements, support and services
offerings, upcoming events, helpful resources, and heroes in the broader IBM
Service Management network. This blog provides multi-directional communication
with the public, and we encourage and look forward to your feedback, thoughts,
and questions. For extended sharing, check out our new IBM Service Management community.

I'm Tiffany Winman, the
IBM Service Management community and social media program manager, and my blog
topics tend to focus on communities, people, companies, heroes, and stories in
the broader Service Management and Tivoli "ecosystem" and the use of innovative social
technologies to facilitate online social networking and collaboration. When I'm
not blogging on group blogs such as Service Management, Tivoli, Pulse, and Web 2.0 Goes to Work,
you can join me in riveting conversation ;) on my individual blog.

My name is Wendy
Whalen and Ill be posting entries to this IBM Service Management blog on a
regular basis. Part of the Tivoli Communications team, I edit IBM Service Provider
News, among other things. I came to Tivoli
in 2006 by way of the Micromuse (Netcool)
acquisition (and to Muse in 2005 via its Quallaby (Proviso)
acquisition).

Who cares about some Tele-Something Something event on the
French Riviera? Well, many service providers using Tivoli Netcool and Vallent
solutions do, for starters. That would be telcos, wireless operators, cable and
multi-service operators , etc. TMF is THE major industry organization for CSPs.

So about Nice in May: The Forum announced its 2008 Award
Winners, divided into seven categories. We were entered in the Best Practices
for Suppliers category. And oh yeah, we won. For our eTOM customization and
real world application for T-Com
Croatia - beating out AMDOCS, HP, Netcracker and two entries from Telecordia.

We also announced that Canadian CSP
TELUS recently selected ReachView,
an Alcatel-Lucent
company, to implement a solution based on IBM Tivoli Netcool software.This
deployment makes TELUS Alcatel-Lucent's 100th customer to use Tivoli Netcool
software.